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On the Use of Directional Wave Criteria

Article  in  Journal of Waterway Port Coastal and Ocean Engineering · September 2004

DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-950X(2004)130:5(272)

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Use of Directional Wave Criteria
George Z. Forristall1
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Abstract: Directional wave statistics can be used to optimize the design of offshore structures which are not symmetrical. Unfortunately
there does not appear to be any consensus on how directional design criteria should be developed or used. Using simple examples, we
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show that commonly used methods are unconservative. In order to preserve the reliability given by designing to omnidirectional criteria,
the product of the probabilities of nonexceedance from all of the direction bands must equal the omnidirectional probability. We suggest
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a simple method for assuring consistency between omnidirectional and directional criteria.
DOI: 10.1061/共ASCE兲0733-950X共2004兲130:5共1兲
CE Database subject headings: Ocean environments; Random waves; Offshore structures; Design criteria.
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Introduction extreme wave height from the NW will always be less than 共or at
most equal to兲 20 m. The lower directional wave heights are not a
Offshore structures are usually designed for the worst environ- problem as long as the reliability of the structure is calculated by
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mental conditions that are expected to occur in 50 or 100 years. combining the probabilities of the structure that exceed a limit
Design to a 100-year criteria along with safety factors from stan- state from all directions.
dard design codes has been shown to yield probabilities of failure A problem does arise if the ‘‘100-year’’ directional wave
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on the order of 10⫺5 – 10⫺4 per year 共van de Graaf et al. 1994兲. heights in sectors are used as design criteria without checking on
Estimation of 100-year criteria from hindcast or measured wave the overall reliability of the structure. The reliability of a structure
data is regularly accomplished using extreme value statistics, as designed to directional criteria specified in that way will be less
/2

described in detail by Tucker and Pitt 共2001兲. than if the omnidirectional criteria had been used. Some designers
Designers now regularly ask for directional wave statistics as attempt to cure this problem by increasing the wave height in the
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well as omnidirectional criteria. The directional criteria can be
used to optimize the design of a structure which is not symmetri-
cal. Sufficient sources of directional wave data both from mea-
surements 共Allender et al. 1989兲 and hindcasts 共Komen et al.
3/
worst sector to match the omnidirectional criteria, and increasing
all of the other directional values by the same ratio. Unfortu-
nately, the reliability of a structure designed in this way is still

lower than if the omnidirectional criteria had been used.

1994兲 now exist to make reasonable estimates of directional ex- The use of directional criteria is analogous to the use of sea-
tremes possible. Despite this interest, there seems to be little lit- sonal criteria for a mobile jack-up rig and is somewhat easier to
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erature on the subject of how directional criteria should be calcu- understand in the latter case. If we divide the climate in the North
lated and used. From private conversations with practitioners, it Sea into summer and winter seasons, the summer criteria are al-
has become obvious to the writer that there are considerable dif- ways significantly lower than the winter criteria which are similar
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ferences of opinion on how directional criteria should be speci- to the all-year criteria. If the deck is left at the level specified by
fied. This paper is intended to stimulate a discussion of this issue the all-year criteria throughout the year, essentially all of the risk
by presenting the writer’s views, and illustrating them with sim- of a wave hitting the deck is in the winter. The overall risk would
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plified examples. be the same if the rig were only used during the winter using the
Clearly, the probability of a particular high wave height being winter criteria. But if the deck height is lowered during the sum-
exceeded in one direction is always less than the probability that mer to try to take advantage of the lower summer criteria, the
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the same wave height is exceeded from all directions 共i.e., omni- overall risk is increased since there would then be some risk of a
directionally兲. For example, if the omnidirectional 100-year wave wave hitting the deck in the summer.
height at a particular location has been calculated as 20 m, the For directional criteria, we can best illustrate this concept by
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probability that this wave height will approach from any particu-
lar directional sector 共say NW兲 is always less than or equal to the
probability that it will approach from all directions combined. The
reciprocal argument would state that in a 100-year period, the
considering two examples. These examples are made much sim-
pler than a real extreme value analysis in order to isolate the
problem of finding directional criteria.
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Two Equal Sectors with Equal Distributions of Wave

1
Shell International Exploration and Production, Postbus 62, 2280 AB Height in Each Sector
Rijswijk, The Netherlands. E-mail: g.forristall@shell.com
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Suppose the omnidirectional cumulative distribution function

Note. Discussion open until February 1, 2005. Separate discussions
must be submitted for individual papers. To extend the closing date by 共CDF兲 of H s is given by the Weibull distribution,
one month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Managing F 共 h 兲 ⫽1⫺expb ⫺ 共 h/2兲 1.25c (1)
Editor. The manuscript for this technical note was submitted for review
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and possible publication on July 15, 2003; approved on February 23, For simplicity, assume that the de-correlation time scale of the
2004. This technical note is part of the Journal of Waterway, Port, waves is 3 h so the arrival rate is r⫽(365.25* 8)⫽2,920 per year.
Coastal, and Ocean Engineering, Vol. 130, No. 5, September 1, 2004. The probability P 共year, omni兲 that the maximum H s in 1 year is
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©ASCE, ISSN 0733-950X/2004/5-1– 4/$18.00. less than h is then given by

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P 共 year,omni兲 ⫽ 关 F 共 h 兲兴 r ⬇exp兵 ⫺r 关 1⫺F 共 h 兲兴 其 (2) 1

F共 h 兲⫽ 关 N共 h 兲 ⫹S共 h 兲兴 (9)
where the approximation is very good for F(h) close to 1. Setting 2
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P⫽1 – 0.01 to get the 100-year wave height yields As before, assume that there are 2,920 independent values of
h 共 100 years,omni兲 ⫽15.16 (3) significant wave height per year. Then the 100-year, omnidirec-
tional wave height is given by
If we use this criterion to design a very simple and precise struc-
0.99⫽exp兵 ⫺2,920关 1⫺F 共 h 兲兴 其
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ture that will fail when H s reaches 15.16 m, then the probability (10)
of failure of this structure is clearly also 0.01 per year. which can be solved to give
Now suppose that the wave environment is uniform from all
directions, but we analyze the waves in the directional sectors h 共 omni兲 ⫽14.65 (11)
0°–180° and 180°–360°. Since there are only half as many waves
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The 100-year wave heights for the north and south sectors are
in each of these sectors, the arrival rate is now r⫽1,460 per year. found in a similar way, but with only 1,460 waves per year. Those
Then the probability that the waves in one of the sectors are less solutions are
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than 15.16 m in 1 year is
h 共 north兲 ⫽14.49 (12)
P 共 year,sector兲 ⫽exp兵 ⫺1,460关 1⫺F 共 15.16兲兴 其 ⫽0.9950 (4)
h 共 south兲 ⫽13.04 (13)
The probability that our structure will not fail in 1 year is the
If we use these values, we discover just as in the last example that
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probability that it will not fail due to a wave from sector 1 times
the probability that it will not fail due to a wave from sector 2, or the probability of reaching the design limit in 1 year is

P 共 survival兲 ⫽ P 共 y,s 兲 2 ⫽ 共 0.9950兲 2 ⫽0.99 (5) 共 0.99兲 2 ⫽0.9801 (14)

which is just the same as when we did the analysis on an omni- If we ratio up to match the worst sector with the omnidirectional
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directional basis. If we, however, calculate the 100-year return criteria,

interval waves in each sector from Eq. 共2兲 using r⫽1,460, we h 共 north兲 ⫽14.65 (15)
find that
h 共 south兲 ⫽13.185 (16)
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h 共 100 years,sector兲 ⫽14.50 (6)

The probability of reaching the design limit in 1 year is then
Now suppose we design a structure that will fail when H s
⫽14.50 from either sector. The probability that this structure will 共 0.9915兲 2 ⫽0.9832 (17)
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survive in 1 year can again be calculated from Eqs. 共4兲 and 共5兲, which means that the probability of reaching the design limit is
and is 共0.99*0.99兲⫽0.98. There is now twice the opportunity for
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still greater than 0.01 per year.

waves to exceed this value as in the omnidirectional case and it
would be twice as likely to fail as the structure designed from the
100-year omnidirectional criteria. Directional Criteria Must Be Consistent
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In practice, of course, this would not be done but the example with the Desired Reliability
serves to illustrate the potential problem. The point of this ex-
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ample is that while it is perfectly rational to calculate the reliabil- We should again emphasize that there is no problem with using
ity of a structure from wave statistics in directional sectors, it distributions which have been calculated by directional sectors to
would be incorrect and unconservative to design a structure for calculate the reliability of a structure. The only difficulty arises
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100-year waves calculated by a directional sector without check-
ing its overall reliability.
Two Sectors with Unequal Distributions of Wave
when we try to find design criteria for the sectors which will lead
to the desired reliability.
If we design to an omnidirectional criterion when the real
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ocean has preferred directions, we get the benefit that it is ex-

Height in Each Sector
tremely unlikely that the structure will fail from the milder direc-
One practice that is commonly used in deriving directional crite- tions. When we design right up to the directional criteria as in the
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ria is to increase the design height in the most severe sector so
that it matches the omnidirectional criteria. The design heights for
the other sectors are typically increased by the ratio of h 共omni兲/h
共worst sector兲. This procedure still leads to a design which is less
example above, the structure is equally likely to fail due to waves
from either direction and in this case is twice as likely to fail as if
designed using omnidirectional criteria.
There is an infinite number of combinations of criteria which
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reliable in the sense that the probability that a structure will reach could be used to derive the same level of reliability as the omni-
its design yield limit is still greater than 0.01 per year. The first directional case but, say, we want an equal probability of failure
example cannot be used to demonstrate this fact since increasing from the two directions, then the probability of reaching the de-
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the directional criteria in uniform sectors will simply reproduce sign limit from either sector must be (0.99) 1/2⫽0.9950. Using this
the omnidirectional criteria. So consider a slightly more compli- with the directional probabilities leads to
cated example in which the CDF, given waves from the north, is
h 共 north兲 ⫽15.16
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(18)
N共 h 兲 ⫽1⫺expb ⫺ 共 h/2兲 1.25c (7)
h 共 south兲 ⫽13.64 (19)
and the CDF, given waves from the south, is
This leads to the somewhat controversial result that the criteria
S共 h 兲 ⫽1⫺expb ⫺ 共 h/1.8 兲 1.25c (8)
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which should be used from the worst sector are now higher than
Then suppose that half of the waves come from the south and half the omnidirectional criteria. This must be done to compensate for
from the north. The CDF for a wave from any direction 共the the fact that failure due to waves from the mild sector has now
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omnidirectional CDF兲 is then become possible. There may still be benefit from using directional

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Table 1. Parameters of Weibull Distributions Fit to Directional Table 3. Directional Wave Heights from Table 2 Factored so that the
Sectors 100-Year Wave Height from the Worst Sector is Equal to the Omnidirec-
␣ ␴ tional Wave Height
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Sector Number of observations
Omni 42,124 1.45 3.35 Sector Factored H s F(H s )
0– 45 3,816 1.66 2.84 Omni 19.19 0.99
45–90 1,237 2.64 3.38 0– 45 11.79 0.9936
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90–135 967 3.04 3.66 45–90 7.99 0.9947
135–180 1,412 3.11 3.52 90–135 7.69 0.9953
180–225 6,479 1.68 3.55 135–180 7.36 0.9952
225–270 16,158 1.59 4.00 180–225 14.95 0.9938
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270–315 7,785 1.44 3.34 225–270 19.19 0.9938
315–360 4,290 1.36 2.78 270–315 18.76 0.9931
315–360 15.79 0.9938
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criteria, since making the criteria slightly higher in one direction

is compensated by reducing it by a larger factor in the mild di- 1⫺ 共 0.99兲 8 ⫽0.0773 (22)
rection. which has a return period of 12.9 years.
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If we follow the practice of increasing the 100-year wave

height in the worst sector to match the omnidirectional wave
Realistic Example height and ratio of all of the other sectors by the same factor, the
result is the wave heights listed in the second column of Table 3.
For a realistic example of how we believe directional criteria
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The third column in Table 3 gives the probability of nonex-

should be calculated and used, we consider a data set of waves ceedance of the factored wave heights for each sector, calculated
hindcast for a location in the northeast Atlantic. Waves heights from Eq. 共20兲 and the parameters in Table 1. The probability that
from each of eight directional sectors were fit using two- the listed wave heights in at least one of the directional sectors
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parameter Weibull distributions, will be exceeded in 1 year is given by

F 共 h 兲 ⫽1⫺expb ⫺ 共 h/␴ 兲 ␣ c (20)
兿 F i ⫽1⫺0.9542⫽0.0458
/2

1⫺ (23)
The omnidirectional data were fit to a similar distribution. The
resulting parameters are listed in Table 1 along with the number which is a return period of 21.9 years. Factoring the directional
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of observations in each sector. wave heights has increased the reliability of the design, but it
The wave height which is expected to be exceeded once in 100 remains less reliable than a structure designed to the omnidirec-
years in sector i is given by tional criteria. The loss of reliability is inevitable, since a structure
3/

0.99⫽exp兵 ⫺2,920f i 关 1⫺F i 共 h 兲兴 其 (21) designed to the criteria in Table 3 will be weaker in almost all
directions than a structure designed to the omnidirectional crite-
where f i ⫽fraction of wave observations in that sector. Solving
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Eq. 共21兲 for each sector and the omnidirectional 100-year wave
height gives the values in Table 2. Because of imperfections in
extreme value fits to real data, 兺 f i 关 1⫺F i (h) 兴 is not precisely
ria.
The simplest way to produce directional criteria which give
the same reliability as the omnidirectional criteria is to make the
probabilities from each direction equal with their product equal to
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equal to the omnidirectional probability of exceeding h. The dif- 0.99. The probability of nonexceedance in each direction is thus
ference is, however, very small. equal to 0.998 744, which essentially gives a return period of 800
As for the simple examples, the directional 100-year values in years. Most extreme value software can easily be set to make this
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every sector are less than the omnidirectional 100 year wave calculation. The results are given in Table 4.
height. In each directional sector, the listed wave heights have a We see that the directional wave heights for two of the sectors
probability of 1 in 100 of being exceeded in 1 year. The probabil- are higher than the omnidirectional wave height, as they must be
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ity that the listed wave height in at least one directional sector to maintain the reliability of a structure. By construction, the
will be exceeded in 1 year is thus
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Table 4. Consistent Directional Wave Heights are Calculated so that

Table 2. Wave Heights Which are Exceeded with a 100-Year Return Return Period for Waves in Eight Sectors are Calculated with Return
Period in Each Directional Sector Period of 800 Years
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Sector 100-year H s Sector Directional H s

Omni 19.19 Omni 19.19
0– 45 11.51 0– 45 12.87
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45–90 7.79 45–90 8.43

90–135 7.50 90–135 8.04
135–180 7.18 135–180 7.67
180–225 14.59 180–225 16.21
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225–270 18.72 225–270 20.75

270–315 18.30 270–315 20.83
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315–360 15.40 315–360 17.63

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probability that the wave heights in at least one of the directional
sectors will be exceeded in 1 year is now 1⫺0.99⫽0.01, the same
as the omnidirectional probability.
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Conclusions and Recommendations
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The design of an offshore structure which is stronger in one di-
rection than another may benefit from the use of directional wave
criteria. But unless the meaning of directional criteria is carefully
understood, the resulting structure may be less reliable than a
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structure designed using an omnidirectional wave height.
Cumulative distribution functions of waves from various di-
rectional bands can be estimated easily enough by sorting the
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available wave height data into direction bins. If the strength of a
structure in each direction is known, then the probability of sur-
vival of the structure due to waves from each direction band can
be calculated from the probability distribution function of the
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wave heights in that direction band. The total probability of sur-
vival of the structure is then obtained by multiplying the prob-
ability of survival from all directions. There is no controversy
about how such a reliability calculation should be made using
directional wave height probability density functions.
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The problem arises when directional criteria must be specified
for a given return period. If we naively calculate the wave height
with a 100-year wave return period in each direction band, then
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the 100-year wave height in one of the direction bands will be
exceeded with a return period much less than 100 years. This has
been amply demonstrated by the examples in this paper. If the
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directional wave heights are factored up so that the wave height in
the worst direction band equals the omnidirectional wave height,
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the result is still unconservative compared to the omnidirectional
wave height.
In order to preserve the reliability given by designing to the
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omnidirectional wave height, the product of the probabilities of
nonexceedance from all of the direction bands must equal the
omnidirectional probability. The simplest way to do this is to
make the probabilities in all of the direction bands equal. In this
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case, if there are n direction bands and we want the criteria for a
y year return period, the wave height in each band must be ex-
ceeded at the ny level.
It is very difficult to design a structure which exactly matches
a directional wave height distribution. Some adjustment of the
directional criteria so that failure from waves in one directional
band is more probable than another may thus result in a more
optimal structure. Such changes are permissible as long as they
result in the same overall reliability. Indeed, the final judge of a
set of directional criteria must be a check on the reliability of the
structure which is designed from it.
We hope that this technical note will stimulate discussion of
the issues we have raised and welcome any comments.
Acknowledgments
The ideas presented in this paper are the result of many conver-
sations with colleagues, particularly Chris Shaw, Chris Graham,
Kevin Ewans and Michael Vogel. Many years ago, many of the
same ideas were developed by Bob Haring, Jim Bole and Bob
Stacy in informal documents discussed at Exploration and Pro-
duction Forum meetings.
References
Allender, J., Audunson, T., Bjerken, S., Krogstad, H., Steinbakke, P.,
Vartdal, L., Borgman, L., and Graham, C. 共1989兲. ‘‘The WADIC
project: A comprehensive field evaluation of directional wave instru-
mentation.’’ Ocean Eng., 16, 505–536.
Komen, G. J., Cavaleri, L., Donelan, M., Hasselmann, K., Hasselmann,
S., and Janssen, P. A. E. M. 共1994兲. Dynamics and modeling of ocean
waves, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Tucker, M. J., and Pitt, E. G. 共2001兲. Waves in ocean engineering,
Elsevier, Amsterdam.
van de Graaf, J. W., Tromans, P. S., and Efthymiou, M. 共1994兲. ‘‘The
reliability of offshore structures and its dependence on design code
and environment.’’ Proc., Offshore Technical Conf., OTC 7382, 105–
02
118.
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